when do my chicks go with my big birds?

[caderosko]

i have six rohode island red chicks and i was wondering when can they go in my big coop with my full size chickens. they are about a month and a half old and are geting alot bigger. when should i put them inside there new home. and happy and safe???????

 

[gamebirdsonly]

Thats a personal chioce. But I usually introduce mine when their around 3 months unless I have roo in the pen then I wait until 4 months or older.

 

[azygous]

I merge my chicks at age six weeks. But there are preparations first.

When my chicks are about two weeks old, they start spending warm days out in their safe pen inside the regular pen. They go back to their brooder to sleep each night. Around four-weeks of age, I open little pop holes in their safe pen so they can start mingling with the older chickens. They learn quickly to run back through their small pop holes to safety when bullied or chased.

Another reason to have a separate pen for them is to allow them to eat and drink in peace. Otherwise the big girls would chase them away from the feeders and they wouldn't get enough to eat.

Around six weeks of age, they go to live in the coop with the older girls. But on the day they move in, I lock the big girls out as soon as they're through laying for the day. This way the chicks learn where home is and that it's where they will sleep at night. As soon as it's almost dark, after spending several hours getting accustomed to the coop, I place the babies on the far end of the perch and let the big girls in.

The first night usually goes smoothly, and in the morning, the big girls chase the babies out of the coop. The babies all scoot into their safe pen, and all is well until roosting time. This is when your job starts.

You'll need to coax the babies in at night, and they'll be afraid of the big girls. You'll need to referee and stop any bullying. Having a partition on the perch between the babies and the big girls helps. Usually, it takes a week or two for the babies to learn to go in by themselves.

I've had six-week olds who were just too timid to roost with the big girls, so I put them back in their brooder for another week and try it again. A week can make a big difference in the level of confidence.

The important thing is to provide a safe pen or "panic room" as I call it. By the time the babies get too big to fit through their pop holes, they'll be big enough to handle the big girls.

 

[Jimtherunner]

Six weeks worked for me too. I had the 17 chicks in a brooder in the same coop with the 11 big birds ( 9 hens, 2 Roos ). All birds are Welsummer. After a week, I opened a corner of the brooder to allow the chicks access to the big coop as well ascthevability to retreat to safety when necessary. It's been a week. The chicks still all snuggle together in their pen at night but they mingle among the big birds freely for the most part. Little birds don't roam far from the coop yet but more each day.

 

[mpguay]

azygous -
fantastic post, thank you.

 

[Urchin]

I'm glad I found this thread. I'm going to be integrating brooder chicks into the flock around the end of June and again early August. My coop dwellers will only be four months old then, so I hope things go a little more smoothly. I integrated three four week old silkies in with them a couple of weeks ago, throwing everyone out in the yard together, then having the little silkies sleep in a separated area under their heat lamp in the coop. We had no problems. The bigger birds didn't even really chase the silkies. Maybe it's because they were young themselves and pretty new to the coop and yard. But I never thought about making escape hatches and safe pens for them. I'll have to do that with the next couple of batches to graduate to the coop. Thanks for that idea!

 

[Jimtherunner]

Been two weeks and happy to report all birds still doing ok except the one baby my dog retrieved...nutter story and he's back on the ecollar til the babies get bigger. My fault. Babies are still sleeping together on the floor but they are on the roosts during the day. Only a couple hens get after them but the chicks seem to know who is friend and who is foe. They hide or race past. The Roos are very kind to them and the hens don't get after them if the Roos are near. The babies heed the warning calls of the Roos but the babies do not range with the big birds...or stray far from the coop yet at all which is good for now.